keskiviikko 8. tammikuuta 2014

Yukicon and Kyokai no Kanata

A new year has begun. Obviously it also means new plans and new costumes. Cosplaywisely year 2013 was great. Maria made more than 20 new cosplays and I too cosplayed more than ten characters. I'm not sure how many costumes I’ll be making this year but I do hope to find nice and awesome characters. Before that I promise to hijack this blog and write for it at least every other week if not more often.


                                           Maria (on the left) and me sewing our costumes

Fall 2013 anime season was a disappointment with less than three inspiring characters to cosplay and that greatly affects my cosplay plans. Thus I hope the winter season will be better and spring even better.  While the amount of cosplayable characters was low there were few great shows, namely still ongoing Nagi no Asukara and more-than-reference-anime Outbreak Company.  

  My haafu-eefu meido can't be this adorable

This season looks better. I quite liked already aired Space Dandy (I can't say same about the director’s earlier work Cowboy Bepop as I like complete stories more than episodic anime. And CB lacked characters and didn't use its potential.  Still, CB looks great even after 15 years.) and Shoji Kawamori's Nobunaga the Fool. Nobunaga the Fool reminds me of Studio Gonzo’s so horrible it is awesome series Glass Fleet. Kawamori was in charge of the mechanical design of the series. I'm anxiously waiting for Chuunibyou’s second season (tomorrow!!), Nourin and Toaru Hikuushi to begin. I also hope to find other great series to enjoy and even rave about. Maria will at least be watching Chuuni but doesn’t really know about other series.

New anime season, check it out!

Anyway, this post is about Yukicon's cosplays and a certain Kyoto Animation series called Kyokai no Kanata which after suspicion turned out to be a very cute and sometimes touching series. We both watched it and I dare to say, cried with it. Kyokai no Kanata, Kyokana, was very different from your everyday Kyoani-show. If anything it reminded me of Munto, the series I never completed (because one character annoyed me more than anything). Kyokana had excellent animation, it oozed from all that sakuga and making those few fight scenes obviously cost more than your average anime series combined.

Akkey, Hiro'omi, Mirai and Mitsuki

Despite excellent animation the series lacked something in the way characters were written. The heroine, Mirai Kuriyama, began as blobbiest moeblob that has ever blobbed KyoAni blob…show. Mikuru from MotHS would be jealous. After a while it luckily turned out that Mirai was half pretending (and half of that uguuiing was nervousness, wow I made a new word!) and became more serious if a bit quirky lead. The hero and also villain Akihito or Akkey (so clever foreshadowing, to call him demon) was your everyday schoolboy with glasses fetish and troubled past.  

The main couple had most character development and supporting characters stayed in background. Hiro’omi spent most of his time lusting after his imouto Mitsuki and imouto tsukkomied him. Maria’s favorite character was Akkey’s mother, who stayed mystery through the series. Her best features were funky and completely ridiculous costumes.
  
Akkeeeyyy....!

The series had somewhat good pacing. First two episodes seemed a bit cluttered but after that everything was smoother. I maratoned the series week before the last episode and that greatly affected my enjoyment. Watching weekly wouldn't have made such an impact. While there were imperfections and the last part of the last episode ruined the mood for me, I still liked the series very much. Of course episode 6 (idol episode with why always... ) was the best and Maria wants to cosplay from it. I also liked OVA ep 3 because of Hiro’omi.

Because naked Hiro'omi is always relevant

We both compared KyoKana to Chuunibyou and Chuuni just outshines Kyokana in about every aspect. Yuuta and Rikka’s relationship seemed more solid than Akkey and Mirai’s, Chuuni had more interesting characters than KyoKana and pacing was better in Chuuni. For animation, Kyokana was better but as it seems, Chuuni2 will have many well animated scenes. The theme however is the same: If we want to love, we have to accept the person we want to love.

We are participating Yukicon as cosplay contest judges with three other cosplayers. Because judging is hard and can take up to 10 hours per day we wanted to wear comfortable cosplays. I already had my Mirai costume from fall 2013 and Maria apparently had to make Akkey’s mothers chipmunk costume.  Hopefully we can have a photoshoot of said cosplays and post some pictures here.  These costumes are for Saturday. For Sunday I’m contemplating on Victorique from Gosik or Serena from Pokemon. Everything depends on the weather.


 So see you in Yukicon! Stay tuned for Desucon Frostbite (buy your ticket now and meet Yamaguchi "Inuyasha, Ranma, L" Kappei ja Megumi "Shinji, Haruka" Ogata)  plans and our first "It's Japan soon"-post!